


So small. Very fragile.

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Series: Badly paraphrased songs [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blue wants to befriend everyone, Gen, M/M, More tags to be added, Rated T for cursewords, Written and plotted before season 3 aired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 08:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11157921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: In which the Galra's new robeast comes armed with ashrinking ray, Lance and Keith have Things To Talk About and Blue finds her calling as a therapy cat.





	So small. Very fragile.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic assumes that it takes them at least a couple of months to get Shiro back, and during that time Keith pilots Black, Lance pilots Red and Allura pilots Blue, except that sometimes they switch back to their original lions for tactical reasons and Allura has to pilot Black.
> 
> I imagine the lions speaking in a mix of recordings and "text". I don't think they have voices, I think they sort of project words into your mind and you "read them" (because they're not actually text, they're straight up putting the words in your head, like thoughts) with the voice you want. Now, that means the words are flat, with no tone, so if they want a tone they have to find a memory on file that includes the words they need in the necessary tone. Of course, their Paladins are usually good at knowing what they mean just from their mood, so tones aren't necessary unless they really want to make something clear.

While Lance might have made relative peace with some of the most terrible parts of paladinhood – like the possibility of never going home again, dying, and becoming unable to connect with anyone because they wouldn’t truly understand what he’d been through – there’s still a small, childish, worryingly optimistic part of him that keeps hoping for good things, small favors from the Universe, or God, or the Great Carrot to make up for all they’d been going through while trying to do some good. He’s not asking for anything too difficult, like meeting his soulmate or winning the lottery, what he wants is enough time to catch his breath after a big fight, a second to think before speaking, someone to pinch him when he’s being impulsive - basically, all Lance wants is time in small doses. Not too much time, because too much time is a good thing, and Lance doesn't trust those that much nowadays. That's why when Pidge informs them that she and Hunk, using some of Slav’s theories and research regarding parallel universes and planes, have finally managed to locate Shiro, Lance starts having trouble sleeping, and when Slav and Hunk, with help from the Olkari, build a machine capable of opening a portal into the astral plane, where they are certain that Shiro is, Lance is sure that it’ll explode, or that the Galra will attack just as they are about to turn it on.

None of that happens.

They manage to recover Shiro without problem. They pull him out of whatever corner of reality he’d been stuck in, get him into the Castle, explain to him how long it’s been and give him a general idea of what’s been going on in his absence before getting him into a healing pod.

And that’s when the Galra attack.

All Lance feels when he and the others see a metal sphere about the size of Blue start firing at the castle is pity for the Olkari, who at this point must be done with the Galra barging into their planet and ruining things.

“At least they were polite enough to let us rescue Shiro before attacking, right?” he says, smirking at the others.

“Yeah…” Keith says, looking at the robeast, which is circling the castle at a high speed and hasn’t stopped shooting yet. “Lance, I’m taking Red to fight this one.” He turns to look at Lance, watching him intently, as if waiting for him to complain.

Like he would. Lance hasn’t fooled himself into thinking that he and Red are a perfect team just because they can fight together. They are always just a bit out of sync, he’s always a fraction of a second too late to react when they’re flying. They’re good, but they aren’t great, not like she and Keith were, not like he and Blue. Whenever Keith decides to take Red and let Allura pilot Black, Lance feels like they could take down the entire Galra empire.

“Go ahead,” Lance says, shooing Keith away with a hand, “I don’t mind. Blue and I will have your back.”

“Thank you.” Keith smiles a bit, keeping his eyes on Lance for a moment too long before directing them towards Allura and starting to discuss with her the general plans for the battle.

Of course, Keith couldn’t have expected this particular creature to be The Robeast From Hell, although Lance isn’t really surprised. At this point, there is nothing the Galra can do to surprise him. Scare him? Sure. Give him trouble? Definitely. Surprise him? Nah. Sorry. He lost his ability for that when the castle turned out to be a spaceship.

So, when the sphere turns out to be made of independent plates that separate as soon as anything touches them, only to regroup and reform the sphere somewhere else – thus rendering Pidge’s weapon useless against it - Lance is simply annoyed. Well, extremely annoyed, but that’s all he feels.

They’ve been dodging the robeast’s attacks for at least ten minutes and they’re nowhere near close to destroying it, because it won’t stay in one place.

“ _We can help with that_ ,” Blue says, projecting an image of the sonic cannon into his head.

He grins.

“ _Blue, have I told you today that you’re the best lion by far?_ ”

“ _Don’t let Red hear that._ ”

“ _You picked me. She knows I’ll be your Paladin until I die._ ” He softens his smile, projects his fondness for Blue as he thinks those words and then says aloud, “Guys, we have an idea.”

“What is it?” Allura asks, drawing the robeast’s fire away from Yellow, who has been having trouble evading the attacks.

“Blue is sure that the sonic cannon can paralyze it. After that, Keith and Red can melt it. It’s metal, right?”

“It could work,” Allura agrees. “Keith?”

“Let’s do it,” Keith says, positioning Red close to Blue, who is delighted at getting to use her cannon for something. “On your signal, Lance.”

“Okay, here we go!” Lance says, Blue’s enthusiasm rubbing off on him.

They make all the lions fly close to each other to draw the robeast’s fire, moving out of the way at the last second and giving Lance the possibility to shoot at it.

For a moment the plates hang suspended in the air, immobile, and then they fall to the ground, where they remain as Red starts melting them. It’s… rather anticlimactic. Seriously? Ten minutes of disorganized flying around trying to destroy this thing and it ends so easily?

“ _Less complaining, more celebrating that we did the destroying_ ,” Blue points out, sounding smug.

“ _Yep, you’re right. That was great, Blue_ ,” Lance says, patting the controls, but he freezes when he catches something at the corner of his eye.

It’s a small light coming from the parts of the robeast that Keith hasn’t melted yet, and Blue recognizes it just an instant before Lance as the sign of an incoming shot, with Keith in the line of fire.

There’s no time to warn them, but they don’t think about that, they just move on instinct to push Red out of the way. They just got Shiro back, Lance won’t let Voltron lose anyone else if he can help it.

Just an instant before Blue rams into Red’s side, Lance’s chair is pulled back, and before he can react he finds himself expelled from Blue and hitting the ground shoulder first, just as the robeast’s shot reaches Blue. Then she’s gone.

“Lance? Lance!” Hunk is screaming through the comms, but Lance barely registers hearing him - most of him seems to have gone cold and numb with fear, so the only thing he can see is the empty place where Blue stood just a moment earlier, and in which there is nothing now.

There’s a small, vicious part of him that notices Red quickly turning to destroy what’s left of the robeast and hopes that the thing can actually feel itself turning into scrap metal.

It takes a second for Lance to realize that he’s crying and calling out for Blue, and it’s only when he tries to stand that a sharp pain in his right shoulder makes him scream and notice that it’s dislocated.

It doesn’t matter. He supports his right arm with his left hand, managing to get on his feet and move towards the place where Blue had been standing, looking around desperately. Maybe she’d flown off at the last second. Maybe she had simply been teleported. Maybe she was okay.

“Lance. Lance, are you there?” Allura’s voice comes clear through the comms.

“Where’s Blue? Blue? Blue!” He moves too quickly, jostling his injured arm, and he cries out in pain again, but it doesn’t matter because Blue isn’t there and if she just went and performed a heroic sacrifice without him he’s going to- to-

Fuck.

There’s nothing he can do, right?

“Come on, Blue, you can’t do this to me,” he says as he walks. “Bonita, please-”

“Lance, focus,” Keith says sharply.

“Don’t ask me to focus!” Lance says, his voice growing louder with every word until he’s almost screaming the last one. “If this was Red-”

“Can you feel her?”

Lance stops moving. He takes a moment to breathe, to clear his head of the swirling panicked thoughts. No one’s talking.

“ _Blue. Bonita. Please answer me_ ,” he calls. His hands are shaking as he searches for Blue’s presence.

“ _Lance_ ,” Blue says, her mind gently nudging his. It’s warm and reassuring, proof that she is there, but he can’t stop shaking.

“I can hear her,” he tells the others, his voice choked and strained. He doesn’t care. “ _Where are you?_ ” he asks her, looking upwards, trying to find her in the sky.

“ _Look down_ ,” she says.

It takes him a moment to make out what he’s seeing. Just a few meters away from him there is a small blue shape. A very small blue shape. A very small blue shape that he recognizes perfectly and which is quickly flying his way.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says, eyes widening, as the blue shape gets close enough for him to confirm that, yes, it’s Blue. And she’s about the size of a cat.

“Lance?” Hunk says. “What’s going on?”

Blue finally reaches Lance and lands gracefully by his feet. He crouches to get a better look at her.

“It was a shrinking ray,” Lance says, deadpan.

“What?”

“What that robeast was shooting? It made you small.”

There is silence for a moment.

“Doesn’t that go against the laws of physics?” Pidge asks.

“It’s magic. Don’t think about it,” Lance says, even though he is definitely thinking about it.

He reaches for Blue with his good arm and finds out she is light enough to be lifted, but not to be carried around for too long.

“Let’s go back to the castle,” Allura says. “We shouldn’t stay here any longer.”

Red approaches them and lowers her head.

“Get in,” Keith says.

Lance walks slowly, feeling every place he hit when Blue threw him out. The moment he gets into the cockpit, Keith hands him some painkillers and then stares at him, a concerned look on his eyes, lips slightly parted like there’s a word trying to come out.

Lance is about to ask him what his problem is when Blue starts hissing.

“What?” he asks, alternating between looking at Keith and Blue.

“ _Red is laughing_ ,” Blue says. It’s toneless, but Lance suspects it’s only because she doesn’t have the audio files she needs to make it sound like she’s saying it through gritted teeth.

“ _We’ll fix this, Bonita_ ,” Lance soothes, reaching down to pet the top of Blue’s head. Looking up, he adds, “Luciérnaga, don’t be mean.”

Keith gives him an odd look, and Lance flushes. Shit, he’d said it out loud.

“‘Luciérnaga’?”

“That’s Red. Uh, my nickname for her.” Lance rubs the back of his neck and tries to hold Keith’s gaze. “I gave her a nickname when I started piloting her? Eh… it was supposed to be her codename, not a nickname… but, yeah, Luciérnaga is Red.”

Keith gives him one last odd look, like he doesn’t know how to react - his face is stuck between perplexity and… uh… something positive? Because Lance can’t see any sign of anger or annoyance, so whatever it is that Keith is feeling, it’s good - before he shrugs and sits down to start the flight back to the castle.

Lance leans against Keith’s seat. The painkillers are acting and now that he’s not hurting all over he can notice how tired he is.

“Red says she thinks the nickname is ridiculous, but that you can keep using it anyway,” Keith says suddenly, not looking away from the controls, despite not having taken off yet.

“Ah. Thanks?” Lance looks up. “Thanks, Red. Um… you told me that already, but thanks.”

“What does it mean?” Keith turns his head slightly in Lance’s direction, looking at him from the corner of his eye.

“Luciérnaga? It means ‘firefly’... Because she flies and she has to do with fire.”

Blue snorts; Lance gives her a reproaching look.

“ _Don’t make me look bad._ ”

“ _Don’t worry, your ‘rival’ didn’t hear me_ ,” Blue says, amused.

“Luciérnaga,” Keith whispers to himself, as if trying the word. He can’t make the ‘r’ sound right, and the ‘g’ sounds like it got stuck on his tongue, but Lance likes how it sounds anyway. “Then why didn’t you call her ‘Firefly’?” Keith asks, curious, looking up at Lance.

“’Luciérnaga’ sounds better.”

Keith nods in understanding and takes off.

Maybe he’s just pretending he understands.

“ _Tell him the rest_ ,” Blue suggests.

“ _No._ ”

“ _Finish the explanation, Lance._ ”

Lance sighs. He’s too tired to argue. Besides, everyone saw him crying and screaming when he’d thought Blue had been destroyed, a bit more painful honesty for one day won’t kill him.

“I also like to name things in Spanish when I can,” he says quietly. “It’s like… a reminder. Of home.”

Keith nods again. After a moment, he says, “Like you’re saving a couple of words, just in case you lose everything else.”

Lance gives him a surprised look.

“Immigrant parents,” Keith says, smiling sadly. “Or, well, the people I knew as my parents.”

“Ah.”

Lance doesn’t know how to answer to that. Things between him and Keith have been strange for a while. Strange and awkward. It might have to do with the fact that there seems to be some mutual interest of the non-platonic kind.

“ _I think that’s called a ‘crush’_ ,” Blue points out tonelessly. Lance really needs to remember to limit her access to his thoughts.

“ _Was that sarcasm?_ ”

“ _No? I thought you were looking for a shorter way to say it._ ” Okay, it wasn’t sarcasm. She used Keith’s voice a lot in the sentence, and she always does that when she wants to sound earnest.

“ _It might be a crush_ ,” he admits, just as they’re entering the hangar.

**Author's Note:**

> [The Great Carrot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAK6P10ghI0) (or, How To Recognize a Chilean Fic Writer).
> 
> You might have noticed that at one point Lance calls Blue 'Bonita'. That's a compliment in Spanish, means something like 'pretty/cute'. I headcanon Lance giving nicknames to everyone and everything (hence 'Luciérnaga'), but not always using them. Anyway, Blue is his best girl, so of course she gets a nickname. A flattering nickname.
> 
> I was supposed to post this two months ago, but I had 6,000 words written when I realized I hated most of them, so I started rewriting.
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you feel like promoting this fic, would you consider reblogging [this post](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/161648358040/so-small-very-fragile-chapter-1)? Thank you!


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